Vladimir Volegov “I need to have you near me”, oil on canvas.

Abide by the ADULT CONTENT LAWS of your country.

“I thought you quit smoking.”
“Your mother thinks so too.”
He carefully packed the tobacco into the bowl and placed the box back under the seat. We walked down the driveway and around the tall shrubbery before he pulled the lighter from his pocket and took a draw from the Jack Black blend.
“Aaahhhh.” He smiled at me.
After a few more houses, I stopped and looked at a home on the north side of the street, a stately two-story brick home with large white columns and ivy growing on the west end. Dad just stood and waited for my explanation.
“I used to know a girl who lived there,” I confessed.
“I know. She’s married now and has four kids.”
“Damn! Four kids?”
“Yeah. Her oldest boy sort of looks like you.”
“Huh?”

When you combine an artist-sailor, from Key West, a future Contessa from Ukraine, an ambitious paralegal from Germany, and an entity in a saltpond of a deserted island, can you imagine what happens?

Conform to the ADULT CONTENT LAWS of your country.

Chapter one. Louis first meets Riki in the Bahamas

She told me that her family was from Ukraine and they were chartering the catamaran with another family from Portugal.
“The boat is really crowded, and there is no escaping the constant talking and arguing,” she said. “Do you have this whole boat to yourself?”
“Yes. But I own this boat. I paid it off years ago.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“Different things? Mostly I am a painter!”
“Like walls and houses?”
I laughed. “Hell no! Although I’ve done that too! I do paintings of things and places and sell them to the tourists.”